


Look Alive

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7122304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU. totally fictional. Cristiano kicks a drug habit and looks back on the previous year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Alive

**Author's Note:**

> mentions of drugs, sex, alcohol. the usual. don't do drugs, kids. i suggest you read it once and then double back and read it again and see if anything changes
> 
> a little jumbled sorry

He woke up at five in the morning like he always did, rolled over in bed to stare at the pale back beside him. There was the early morning silence, and then -- a random thought, not at all important -- he wondered if he fucked this boy right, could he fuck him forever. He ate breakfast, didn’t save any, didn’t share. Grabbed his coat on the way out and didn’t snooze the alarm that went off quietly near the other boy’s forehead. 

These were the private rebellions that kept it obsession rather than love. He operated by touch, wondering if he felt this way, could he still be real. Could he love without contamination. They weren’t questions anymore but improperly phrased insults directed at his soul. That’s what they were, forever aiming downward to trace his descent. 

The gym was silent except for the pounding of sneakers, the occasional slam of a weight. It was this music that always made him hesitate before plugging in his earphones and surrendering to the wild rhythms, the modern reckless abandon. 

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued, lazily flashing back to the last time he felt this heat, when he was running on the track outside. Late summer. He was running himself into the ground, completely lost in thought. He hadn’t been thinking about anything particularly important -- he remembered that, that it had been like the flick of a switch in his mind. One second it was mindless, numb thought, and the next a boy was sprinting into his vision. 

He got a cramp. Cristiano ran over. Everything changed. 

He blinked, and he was back in the gym, thinking about the back that was still lovely against his sheets. He wished there was something else to do in that goddamn place. Maybe then he wouldn’t think so much about killing his boredom. And maybe then love would be part of life, not the overwhelming presence that suffocated and suppressed him. 

Then, obsession, he reminded himself gently. 

He went over their games in his head, remembered how after the very first time Ricardo-- Kaká platonically, Ricardo affectionately-- had looked at him innocently and said: 

“You’re good at this.” 

They were just first years back then, fresh out of high school and still high on the freedom. “Good at what?” 

“This whole hook-up thing. It doesn't phase you. You play it like a game.” 

For some reason, he grew suddenly serious. He didn't know what it was, couldn't remember. A shift in the air, maybe, was responsible for the path they'd headed down. 

“I wish I didn't,” he said. 

“Why?” He grinned foolishly. “Practice makes you perfect.” 

“Practice makes me tired,” he said, laughing. 

He remembered how Ricardo had seemed to him back then, a pretty little thing in his bed, something to corrupt and consume. He would trample him. 

He finished his workout and half-smiled at someone he passed on his way to the bathroom. They'd met at a party or something. Cristiano hated him but pretended not to. It was just easier that way. 

He was halfway through the first semester of sophomore year kicking a drug habit and a lifestyle that made him see bathroom tiles and the inside of toilet bowls much too often. He wasn’t fucked up. It wasn’t like that. Not some dizzying descent into darkness and then the resurgence back to life. He wasn’t fucking Jesus Christ rolling back the stone. He was just trying to get his life back in order, or that’s what he told himself. 

The early wake up, the gym twice a day, the hours in the library. It was the quiet rhythm that brought peace to a life that had only been pandemonium before. The past year, the difficult summer -- it had all come to equal this moment. This, now, with the sweat and the determination; and this too, where every weekend was a call back to simple living, mindless chaos, feeling something better than the natural world. He had to find his roots again in the mundane activities of a human world. If he ever left himself again with a pill or a line or a few too many drinks, he’d be ripping out his own roots. It was logical and painful. So it goes. 

Marcelo had texted about grabbing lunch, and as he typed out his response, he remembered his innocent boy sitting up in bed one night and touching the pillow and saying, “You’re going to get mad at me for saying this.” 

“Say it anyway.” 

“I don’t like your friends much. I don’t get why you’re friends with them.” 

He’d frowned and sat up straighter. “What do you mean? Does there have to be a reason you’re friends with people? Sometimes you just connect and that’s it. Besides, they’ve pulled me out of deep shit before. They’re loyal. They’re kind. Real. Honest.” He thought about it. “I love them.” 

“They are with you,” Ricardo said softly, almost wincing, telling himself to pull back while he was ahead. “They’re real and honest and loyal with you, but have you ever seen the way they are around other people? They walk around parties like they’re--” 

“And your friends walk around parties like they’re at a goddamn Jesus convention. They’re judgemental prudes who talk shit behind other people’s backs.” He bit his lip. “If you want the truth,” he added, like the fact that it was true excused it. 

“I do want the truth,” the other boy replied unflinchingly. “I know what my friends are.” He flipped back the covers and stood up to dress. “Do you?” 

Cristiano blinked and the memory faded. He hurriedly packed up his bag and returned to his room. His roommate was still gone, hadn’t returned the night before, but he wasn’t worried. Fabio often disappeared for days at a time. He walked in later with his hair all messed up and a mournful expression on his face, and he explained in his tired voice -- his usual voice -- that he’d been awake for three days straight studying in the library and then had passed out in his chair and hadn’t woken for another fourteen. It was a normal occurrence and one of the reasons he loved Fabio most. He never had to worry about him. 

The room hadn’t changed, but the sleeping figure had woken and left but his watch remained. Cristiano blinked again as he stared at it. Ricardo always forgot his watch. Whenever he took it off, without fail, he would forget it somewhere. In a bathroom, at a bar, in Cristiano’s bed. He was always fiddling with the latches and taking it off as if the wealth and gaudiness didn’t suit him. 

Cristiano remembered another time. They were just sitting in the room and it was after they’d fucked three times, and he remembered it quite clearly because he had never done anyone three times before, and he felt like he was getting fucking married or something. Constricting but nice. He was certain he would flee soon, but he liked the moment just before his feet hit the ground running. 

“So, how do you do it?” 

“How do I do what?” 

“Hook up with people the way you do. Make it a game. How do you just... “ Ricardo struggled with the words. “I don’t know.” Shrugged adorably. “How do you have the confidence to do what you do?” 

“I have no shame,” he said simply. 

“How do you handle rejection?” 

“I don’t,” he said, quite seriously, and Ricardo looked down with a little smile. 

“Right,” he said. “Of cour--” 

“I’m joking,” Cristiano said, half-irritated. “Jesus, what you must think of me.” 

“Yeah. Jesus.” 

“Rejection is like anything. It comes and it goes. Take it and move on.” 

“Sometimes…” He hesitated, looked up to see if Cristiano was still paying attention and then looked back down at his hands. “Uhm, sometimes-- sometimes it’s just, like, hard to move on after rejection.” 

“Harder than not moving on?” 

And he remembered the way they looked at each other. He wasn’t much for sappy shit, but he liked looking at the other boy, and he figured maybe that was something. Liking looking at someone, that is. He figured it was something important, to be able to look someone in the eyes and not immediately want to shy away. 

There was a quiet knock on the door, and Cristiano forced himself back to the present. “Yeah, Fabio, we’re both completely naked.” 

The door opened. “Whenever you say that it’s not true.” He bit his lip and hovered in the doorway. “I was in the--” 

“Library?” 

“What day is it?” 

“Thursday. Check your phone.” 

“Lost it,” he said mournfully. “When it doesn’t make its noises…” A helpless shrug. There was nothing he could do if the phone wasn’t making its noises. “I’m starving.” 

“When’s the last time you had a proper meal?” 

“Tuesday night, I think.” He scratched his forehead. “I hate Physics.” 

“You love Physics.” 

“I love Physics,” he said agreeably. 

“I’m getting lunch with Marcelo after I shower and finish a reading. Come with.” 

“Will do. Napping until--” The rest of his words were muffled by his face hitting the pillow. 

Much later, on the way to lunch, Cristiano poked Fabio in the side and he said, “You remember last year?” 

“Better than the rest of you do,” Fabio joked. “What about it?” 

“You remember when you told us what Marco said about us?” 

“Yeah, wondered why I was friends with you all. Because you’re…” He thought hard for a moment, scrunching up his little face so hard Cristiano worried he might lose his vision and trip over his own feet. “I think he said ‘druggie psychopaths,’ but I could be wrong.” 

Cristiano watched the steady stream of students filter out of the nearest building and head down the path to the main dining hall. Orange sneakers, green dress, violet t-shirt. A sea of color danced before his eyes, and he felt sick to his stomach, seeing life and activity and movement and feeling like something was falling within him. 

“And people wonder why I do drugs,” he muttered bitterly. 

“To be fair,” Fabio said cheerfully, “I don’t think people have too hard of a time guessing why.” 

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “I just want people to talk less shit this year. I can’t handle everything with people on my back, you know? Not our friends and certainly not strangers.” 

“Whatever other people have to say doesn’t matter,” Fabio said soothingly. He was very good at dealing with an agitated Cristiano. Whenever they were in the room together, Cristiano would talk and Fabio would listen, offer up a brief story of his own at the end maybe, but the role he really loved was listening and offering advice. Being the middleman for Cristiano and reality. 

“I know it doesn’t matter,” Cristiano said frustratedly. “Sometimes it just….matters. Fuck.” 

“Clean living,” Fabio said, laughing. At least he could make light of it. “No naughty words.” 

“Fuck off.” He pulled the door open to the dining hall as a group of brightly dressed freshmen emerged. “If I can’t fucking cuss, give me back my drugs. Time to OD.” 

“Cristiano,” Fabio scolded him. “You can’t say that shit. That’s terrible.” 

He shrugged. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a psychopath.” 

His harsh words clashed with a delicate vision, and his memories claimed him as he took the seat across from Marcelo. The same smooth back, the same dark hair, the same lips that curved into a familiar smile. It was stupid. He knew it, bitterly and viciously and honestly. It was stupid, but it was real. 

In his memory, Ricardo laughed at the story he was telling about his friends, and then he fiddled with the covers and he said, “I like your friends when you talk like that.” 

Cristiano just raised his eyebrows. 

“When you talk like that,” Ricardo said again, moving his hands, “When you tell me how it is with all of you together. But I don’t like what you are.” 

“What are you talking about? I swear sometimes you get so cryptic, I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say.” 

“I like how they make you feel,” he said, unwaveringly. “I don’t like what they make you do.” 

“They don’t make me do anything.” He waved his hand and dismissed it. “If I occasionally--” 

“Occasionally,” the other boy muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“Occasionally,” Cristiano said louder. “If I occasionally do coke -- which isn’t even that bad -- it’s because I choose to. Not because they make me.” 

“I know,” Ricardo said with a strange look in his eyes. Like a challenge. “Nobody can make you do anything, right?” He laughed and shook his head again. “I gotta go.” 

Marcelo was tapping the table with his fork. “The fuck,” he said, annoyed. “Why are you ignoring me?” 

“I’m not. I was thinking.” 

“Right. Stop. I have a dilemma.” 

“What’s your dilemma? Can I go grab food?” 

“I’ll come with. The cheese fries are good, but I know that’s not part of this gross new diet you’ve decided to let kill you.” 

Cristiano half-smiled. “Vegetables. An unthinkable addition to my diet.” 

“Unthinkable,” Marcelo agreed. “But my dilemma…” 

He proceeded to explain the same dilemma he came across every week. His longtime girlfriend was annoyed at something stupid he’d done at a party, and his grades were shit so she was mad about that too, and he didn’t know what to do about it. It was hard not to take her side, but Cristiano always managed to come up with a diplomatic enough response, and Marcelo went and did whatever he was going to do anyway before the conversation even happened. 

It was all so hard to focus on. Looking back on it -- all he could ever do lately -- he could feel his mistakes better than he could ever see them before. But back then he hadn’t known them as mistakes. He thought they were choices and, worse, he thought they’d been good ones. 

Another memory, another party. A loud, dark basement. Glowsticks on the ground. Some kind of themed shit. Neon. Tight clothing. A lot of dancing, a lot of his eyeballs shaking because of what he’d taken. He remembered seeing Ricardo with his friends, and he’d walked over and pointed at all of them, trying to decide what to say. He saw them all exchange looks. 

“I’m fucked up but I can see you,” he said, somehow thinking that was the best option. 

“Good,” Ricardo said, pleased. “At least you can see us.” 

“Never mind,” he replied. “Actually your condescension just got so thick that--” He cut off, forgetting his words. He clapped his hands together. “All gone. Shit.” 

“There was a good comeback in there somewhere.” He smirked. And everyone thought he was such an angel. 

“And there’s a cum joke in there somewhere, but I can’t wrap my brain around it.” 

“Something you can’t wrap your brain around? I can’t imagine.” It was one of Ricardo’s friends, snorting impolitely as he said it. He was the snotty type, one of those kids who came to the parties to be accepted but just stood around and tried not to touch anything that would get his sweater vest dirty. 

A wave of irritation crossed Ricardo’s face, and he clenched his jaw. “Shut up,” he muttered. “Don’t be like that.” 

Something different came over Cristiano then, and he couldn’t quite distinguish the drugs from the feeling, but it was the first time he ever thought there could be a difference. He smoothed down the front of his t-shirt, suddenly very interested in the fabric, very interested in the floating feeling, forgetting exactly what the rush was and why he had been so eager a moment before. 

Then, he pointed once more at Ricardo, took a step closer. “I have to tell you something you might not know yet.” 

“Okay.” He bent his ear closer. 

“You give a shit,” Cristiano said into his ear, and then he walked away. 

They’d found their way back to the table in the dining hall, and Fabio had fallen asleep on the table, but he jerked awake when they clanked their forks against the plates. “What,” he mumbled, wiping drool from his chin. 

“Nothing,” Marcelo said, a little sourly. “I just need someone to actually be present at lunch.” 

“Fuck off,” Cristiano muttered. 

“No, you fuck off. All you’ve been doing lately is moping and exercising and eating healthy.” 

“Well fuck me for eating healthy.” 

“Stop it,” Fabio groaned. “You guys do this once a week, and I genuinely can’t take it. I’m starting to enjoy my passouts in the library because at least I get a break from my work and I get a break from the two of you.” 

Cristiano and Marcelo looked at each other and instantly the anger faded. They each mumbled their “Jesus fuck sorry” and it was over, and Fabio returned to being cheerful, and Marcelo returned to shoving food in his mouth and complaining about his girlfriend, and Cristiano just returned. 

He was back in the memory, but it was the next morning, and he woke up groggy and ill. No puking, just a vague headache, exhausted limbs. He needed water badly, so he walked down the hall and drank from the sink. Just about the only thing he remembered was his conversation with Ricardo and his friends and making out with some blonde girl in a dirty corner before leaving with Marcelo. They’d eaten something in the basement but he couldn’t remember what. Fries maybe. Or chips. Candy? 

“Fuck,” he said loudly as someone turned off the shower. 

Thankfully it was his favorite coincidence, so he didn’t have to seek out an awkward way to see Ricardo again without appearing like he cared too much. It was an awful game, always trying to out-asshole his opponent -- his opponent being the one person he truly gave too many shits about. 

“Last night coming back?” He was wet from the shower. Smooth back, dark hair, lips that -- 

“Yeah, totally.” 

Ricardo smiled thinly. He dried his face with the corner of the towel. One drop made its way down the side of his face and dropped off his chin to where it shone on his chest. “Janet,” he said.” 

“No.” He pointed at himself. “Cristiano.” 

He barely smiled at that, something he normally would drop his chin and shake his head at, his hair flying across his forehead. “The girl from last night. Janet. Her number is in your phone.” 

“That’s strange.” He was incredibly uncomfortable and couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. “I wouldn’t have given her my number.” 

The other boy shrugged tensely. “First off you were high as fuck. Second she kinda forced it into your phone. You’re Cristiano Ronaldo after all.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

“Her words, not mine.” 

“Right. The only words you spit at me are ‘Don’t have fun, Cristiano’ and ‘Don’t do drugs, Cristiano.’ Which actually sound remarkably similar when you think about it.” 

Irritation swept over his features like it had at the party. “Stop making me out to be some asshole. I don’t give a shit if you do what you want to do. I’m not my friends, alright? I just don’t want you to constantly be fucked up. It’s hard to talk to someone like that, okay? When they’re that out of their mind fucked up all the time, it’s kinda hard.” 

“Is that what we’re doing? Talking?” 

Ricardo shook his head. “Asking the important questions.” He walked away. 

Back at the table, Marcelo was speaking rapidly to Fabio about their plans for the weekend. His friend was coming to visit. His frat was throwing a party. 

“You know you can come,” Marcelo said to him. 

“Me?” Fabio shook his head. “I gotta study. Sorry.” 

“Not you, dumbass. I know you’re busy this weekend.” He jerked his head at Cris. “You know they’re not that pissed you left. So what, you were part of a frat and you quit. Big fucking deal. It’s just a fucking frat, you know? You’re my best friend, and I buy the booze, so you can come.” 

“I know.” He chewed silently. “I just, uh, I’m not feeling it right now. Might just lock myself in the library with this one--” He whacked Fabio on the shoulder. “Hit the gym, study, you know. Chill this weekend.” 

“You’ve been ‘chilling’ every weekend this year.” He said chilling like it was a dirty word. “And, like, dude, it’s fine. Do your thing. You know I don’t give a shit if you want to change your ways and shit. I totally support that, I really do. I just, like, I think coming out would be good for you.” 

Cristiano shrugged. 

“Besides,” Marcelo continued with a little sigh. He hesitated. “Kaka’s been there.” 

“Ricardo?” Fabio looked up. “He still comes to your parties?” 

“Sometimes.” Marcelo was trying to read Cristiano’s face. “I know you haven’t seen him in awhile--” 

“I see him quite a bit,” Cristiano said stiffly. 

“I know you fuck, but.” 

Fabio kicked his leg, and Marcelo shut up fast. 

They ate and they talked about Marcelo’s dilemma, and on the way to his afternoon class for which he’d distractedly done the reading, he thought about the watch still resting on that side of the bed, the side of the bed that didn’t belong to him. He felt like sitting down somewhere and doing God only knows what. Just taking a break for a moment. Just to think, just to remember without interruptions. 

There he was again in his dreams, standing in front of Ricardo who was smiling and laughing with his friends as he walked into the building. They were coming back from a hike, and they were sweaty and red in the face, probably ready to collapse onto their beds and ignore their homework for a few hours. 

“Hey,” Cristiano told him, a little too sternly for someone who was trying to be friendly. 

His friends disappeared quickly, and then it was just the two of them in front of a water fountain. Cristiano heard them laughing on their way up the stairs. “Do you think he’s drunk right now?” They cackled and stampeded viciously upward. 

“Nice,” Cristiano muttered. “And you think my friends are bad?” 

“Mine are stupid but they’re harmless.” 

“Guess we won’t see eye to eye on that one.” 

Something in his eyes tightened. “I guess.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway.” 

“Anyway. Heard you and that Russian fuck were seen canoodling at a party.” 

“Ukrainian. And no one says canoodling.” 

Cristiano felt something rise in his chest. He convinced himself that it was just because he’d been wrong about the Russian bit. “So you don’t deny it.” 

“Do I deny canoodling?” 

“No one says canoodling,” Cristiano told him. 

Anger and something Cristiano nearly mistook for hurt overtook Ricardo’s eyes. Gone was the innocence and the wonder, and Cris hated to see it replaced by anything, even by something he himself put there. His balled his hands into fists at his sides and his cheeks turned redder. 

“You know, you’re kind of a dick,” he spat. 

Cristiano had never seen him like this, and if he wasn’t so horrified, he would have been intrigued. He almost shut up, but he just settled his features into something contrary and offensive and stuck his chin up. 

“I am? I’m not the one who sucked Russian dick last night” 

“Ukrainian, you piece of shit, and I didn’t suck his dick.” He whirled around to leave, but then turned back, eyes flashing. “But, you know what, it’s none of your goddam business. Janet-from-the-corner was doing just fine sucking your face off the other night. I don’t see what you need me for.” 

“Good,” Cristiano said nonchalantly. “Because neither do I.” 

That made him laugh. Not his normal laugh like something actually amused him but a twisted, angry, unsettling laugh that made Cristiano want to take it all back. 

“I’m going to tell you something that you might not already know, Cristiano.” 

“What,” Cris said dumbly, knowing what was coming. 

“You give a shit.” He slammed the door on his way out. 

He wished he could realize it all numbly, but as he took his seat in class, he knew that he could not remember without feeling and that feeling had nothing to do with the easy pleasure he so badly wished he could return to. It wasn’t easy like that. It wasn’t happy like that. It was the mundane, dull ache, the terrible boredom of existence that tempted him to go back to his fraternity, to go back to buying and selling, to go back to playing his game with Ricardo, to go back to the Janets-in-all-the-corners. 

But he couldn’t because he’d forced himself to take a neutral role. Quitting the frat, turning his back on the drugs, ignoring parties and phone calls and ending friendships -- it wasn’t for Ricardo. It wasn’t some stupid plea for real attention instead of just sex. It wasn’t some fucked up love shit where one person completely changes their identity for another. He just. He didn’t realize certain things until someone else brought it to his attention. He’d had the summer to make up his own mind, and he had, but it hadn’t landed him in any easier of a position. But, he supposed, he probably shouldn’t have expected it to be easy. 

The professor was speaking at the front, and he couldn’t focus on a word, so he muttered “fuck” quietly to himself and doodled in the corner while he tried not to think about their last conversation before they’d been reduced to fucking and numbness. 

It was after a party one night, and he wasn’t that fucked up, just out of his mind on coke, moving around quickly and being overly-aware so he was drinking more and moving faster. He saw Ricardo and his friends at the midnight food truck, so he crossed the street with a few of his friends and they asked each other politely where they’d been that night and how things had been going, polite things, things you wouldn’t ask your friends because you should already know. 

Everyone split soon enough and the two of them remained. Ricardo was picking at his plate of Jamaican food. “Want some?” 

“Nah. Don’t think I could eat anyway. This shit always makes me lose my appetite.” 

“Yeah.” He stared. “Same.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ. I just don’t think you should do it to the point where you get sent to the fucking hospital.” 

“It was one time.” He felt like crying, but he smiled, made it a joke. It was one time. 

Ricardo looked angry, like he was about to explode again, like he was about to really yell this time and not because he was mad. He was angry too, but he was going to yell for a different reason. Maybe because he gave a shit. Hard to tell. 

“Stop doing that,” he said, voice shaking. “Stop acting like everything is such a fucking game. It’s not a game anymore.” 

Cristiano shrugged. He was very good at that, at hearing important things like ‘Stop playing this game’ and ‘You need to stop or you’re going to hurt yourself’ or ‘Your father is dead.’ He was very good at hearing those kinds of things and acting like they didn’t tear him the fuck up inside. 

“Maybe it is a game and you just don’t feel like playing.” 

“You can’t just do this shit for fun and literally almost die. Do you get it? Do whatever shit you want as long as you’re okay in the end.” 

“I don’t do it for fun,” he said, wide-eyed and childlike. “When are you going to get it? I do it to be happy.” 

Ricardo’s face fell, and he took a half-step forward. He shook his head and swallowed, and he was silent for a very long time, and then he said, “You’re right. I do give a shit. If there’s one person I give a shit about, it’s you.” 

Cristiano remembered their conversation earlier -- “Talking? Is that what we’re doing?” 

And he shifted his feet because it wasn’t wearing off yet and he was terrified for the moment that it would. “Don’t do this.” 

The other boy looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m telling you that I care about you. Do you really not want me to do this?” 

Cristiano just stared back, and he felt that feeling in his throat again. “Don’t do this,” he said again. “I think our arrangement is fine the way it is.” His throat felt tight. His voice sounded tense and fake and like he had a cold. “I’m not here to fuck around, you know?” 

Ricardo just nodded, his face pale and severe. He looked down and said, “Right. It’s probably for the better.” 

“Unless you’re worried that you’ll fall in love with me if we keep fucking?” he joked. But it wasn’t funny, and they both knew it. 

“Don’t worry.” He threw his uneaten food away in the nearest trash can. “I won’t make that mistake again.” 

The professor was still at the board addressing the class, but it was nearly over now, and Cristiano’s page was filled with his mindless doodle. The girl behind him was ignoring the professor and watching his hand hard at work. She appeared to be working on quite the drawing of her own. Perhaps trying to gain inspiration. Perhaps trying to spy on the boy she’d heard so much about through the grapevine. 

He packed up his books ten minutes before class was over and sat quietly at an empty desk, ignoring the agitated look of the professor and the vague sense of guilt rising in his chest when he saw the rest of the class bending over their notes hard at work. Most of them weren’t even doodling. 

When class was finally out, he walked slowly back to his dorm, dreading the moment he opened the door because he knew what he would find: the source of his hope and his anguish. It was always like that. Ricardo would wait for him, doing homework quietly on the floor, sometimes speaking to Fabio until Cristiano walked in and then Fabio would leave, and they wouldn’t speak to each other, but they would fuck and sleep maybe and then Ricardo would leave and return to his friends and his life until the next day, and then another silent session would begin. He rarely stayed over. That morning had been a cruel blessing. 

Sure enough, when he opened the door, there was Ricardo sitting on the floor, and Cristiano thought about his smooth back, his dark hair, his soft lips that parted in a sigh every time -- 

“Hey,” he said softly. “I was, uh --” 

Ricardo looked confused for a moment. He stood up and walked to the door and shut it with a click. He seemed to understand what Cristiano was getting at, maybe from his tone or from the way he stared because his gaze hardened. 

“Talking?” he murmured a little cruelly. “Is that what we’re doing?”


End file.
